Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nitroholic on November 04, 2008, 11:36:42 AM
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Oh yeah, that's a big one.
Wildlife officials in northern California last week came across one of the biggest Chinook salmon ever found in the state — a monster more than 4 feet long and weighing 85 pounds.
"We see lots of big ones," Doug Killam, a biologist in the California Department of Fish and Game's Red Bluff office, told the Redding Record Searchlight, "but this one was just bigger than most big ones — it was just spectacular."
The big fish had recently spawned and died, Killam said, and probably weighed about 90 pounds when it began its 100-mile swim upstream from the Pacific to the spot where it died on Battle Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River near the town of Anderson.
The California sport-fishing record for a Chinook salmon is 88 pounds. In Alaska, where they're called king salmon, they get even bigger — the record sport catch is 97 pounds, while the largest commercial catch was a truly phenomenal 126 pounds.
"If someone would have caught this one, it probably would have been a state record," Killam told the Record Searchlight.
Ironically, the sad state of salmon spawning in the Pacific Northwest probably helped this one live a full life. Ocean commercial catches were canceled this year, and the river sport season on the Sacramento drastically shortened.
(http://www.aww-kittah-aww.com/up/public/38647/0_61_chinook_salmon_huge.jpg)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,446686,00.html
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WOW! :o imagine hooking that on a centerpin. I wonder if any monsters like that come back to the vedder. Largest i ever caught was 50 pounds.
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Plenty of guys at the Stave that would keep one that nice.... ;D
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The size of the head is unreal. :o
Imagine getting that on a fly rod. :D
Looks like a giant coho. ???
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Good one for the smoker...
Aw, come on, someone had to say it.
I was talking to 2 German guys on the Chilliwack one year who always come over for 2 weeks to salmon fish in the fall.
One guy said he was wading near dusk one day and a Chinook around 60lbs brushed his leg.
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Good to hear that it spawned so his genes can be passed on to future generations.
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What a humongous beast! Imagine fishing all by yourself and hooking into that thing playing it for a while before it snaps you off, like your buddys would every believe you when you tell them about the 80lber that got away.
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A few years ago in the vedder I saw a nasty white spring landed probably pushing 80 pounds...
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One guy said he was wading near dusk one day and a Chinook around 60lbs brushed his leg.
Ha,ha yeah it humped his leg.
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Looks fake...
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I caught and released a 52" spring on the Vedder about 5 years ago. I saw one caught and released that that same year that dwarfed mine. Funny thing was is that the guy who caught it horsed it in, in less than 4 minutes.
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here is a 60+ i got in the Vedder a few years back (Thanksgiving day) it was chrome when i landed it but this picture was taken about an hour after that as i was exhausted LOL and didnt want to pick it up again. I fought it for over an hour and about 1/2km down the river before landing it, so you can imagine how tired i was after dragging it back up :o
I also hooked one later on that same day (for my buddy) that everyone estimated to be around 90+ it was the biggest fish i have ever seen myself (aside from sturgeon)
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a80/Flaming_Hook/60poundspring.jpg)
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nice fish biggest i have seen on the vedder.
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Hook thats a pig probaly over 50 but a 90lber........... on the vedder!?
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One year I walked down to Peach Road and saw a guy fighting a fish on the fly rod... I watched for 30 mins and started getting bored, I asked another guy fishing below me how long he had had this fish on for, he told me roughly 2 hours :o I came back 2 hours later to see this guy finally landing the fish (dont forget on a fly rod!), ended up weighing 67 pound on a digital scale and took 3 people to hold it up, was absolutley massive (and surprisingly clean). That is the biggest fish I have seen to date landed on the Vedder. Biggest one I have landed was ~50 pounds which I released because it was dark. Biggest keeper was 48, all on the Vedder.
I am assuming that the Vedder must get a few fish in the 80+ pound range every year. I think, the only reason no one catches or reports these fish is because : 1) They are massive and 8-10 pound test normally used for water clarity would have no chance and 2) Most of these fish probably come up in the blow outs when the river is not fishable. I have found some dead ones that looked easily 60+ pounds and lost one last year that looked much bigger, took one jump (well attempted jump, just the head and back of body came out) and snapped me off, my friends couldnt beleive their eyes ;D :o
Cammer here is a chrome fish for you....
(http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg25/fishing_in_summer/IMGP15891.jpg)
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Call me a skeptic but I highly doubt there are 80+ lb salmon returning to the Vedder. Check with the hatchery to see whether fish of that size have return .
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Call me a skeptic but I highly doubt there are 80+ lb salmon returning to the Vedder. Check with the hatchery to see whether fish of that size have return .
Think they would make it up the hatchery channel ???
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I would have to agree with Every Day's conclusions.
I had a few shake downs this year on 15 lb leader that broke the leader like it was nobody's business.
My best days were during the clay bank erosion in early September, I was catching many chinook every day in double digits.
Water was high and coloured.
Few just ripped the leader off and left my heart pounding for 5 seconds because I could feel the head shakes and then pingggg!.
I check my leaders every few casts so I'm pretty sure they were in good shape.
Must have been good size fish.
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Call me a skeptic but I highly doubt there are 80+ lb salmon returning to the Vedder. Check with the hatchery to see whether fish of that size have return .
Think they would make it up the hatchery channel ???
If not, one would think there would be a carcass
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80+ fish in my opinion only happen in a few certain rivers with the right genetics. Skeena/kenai ect. With the amount of people on the vedder someone would land one that big or the body would be found.
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I agree that most fish are over estimated when someone tries to guess the weight.
I caught a Chinook on a charter that weighed in at 40lbs and it was a chunky fish with big shoulders.
When I held the fish up it went from just under my chin to just a couple of inches off the ground and I am 5' 9".
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Looks fake...
Not wanting to rain on anyone's parade, but if I was holding a fish weighing 85lbs, I would not be able to hold it in that kind of position (arms somewhat extended) even with that guys tongue expression. :D I do not see a hand holding the head, so exactly what is he holding onto? ??? The white line along the contour of the upper part of the head makes me wonder about a cut and paste. I also doubt that the fish be as stiff as indicated as that to hold its shape, and the size of the head is disproportional for a fish that size Usually the body gets larger but the head does not get as huge as shown. The mouth is so big it could eat the guys head.
Good thread, but put me into the highly skeptical column on the pic itself. ::)
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For comparisons sake ;D I'm 6'2"
44.5lb
(http://www.nnuploads.com/files/22260_g30ly/IMG_0217.jpg)
41.5lb
(http://www.nnuploads.com/files/22263_74fb7/IMG_0223.jpg)
42lb
(http://www.nnuploads.com/files/22262_hoqa6/IMG_0238small.jpg)
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In the picture of the 85lb Chinook it looks like he's resting it on his knee.
I did notice that Nitroholic spends so much on his fishing trips that he can't afford shoes, shows that he has priorities...fishing comes first.
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I did notice that Nitroholic spends so much on his fishing trips that he can't afford shoes, shows that he has priorities...fishing comes first.
LOL that was my summer job up in River's Inlet ;D
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There are years when Iv come across a dead spawned out chinook that are well above the 50 pound mark from the Vedder River. I remember one year in 1998 some friends and I came across a washed up spring that was close to 80 pounds, It was a Vedder monster. It was just as big as me at the time, that same day we also ran into one about 55-60 pounds. Biggest Vedder spring Iv seen caught would be around 40-45ish, 2 years ago.
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Nitroholic...dude...you gotta do something about that blue facial skin condition...
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Saw a dead one on the Stave two weeks ago hitting the 50lb mark.
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did i say mine weighed 90 ??? no i didnt. the one im holding up was weighed with a scale and was around 60lbs (bit over but i always take a few pounds off anyway) and i was talking to a guy that beside me and his daughter and she had landed an 84lb'er the day before :o the Creel survey lady that was there confirmed this fish for me also(i asked her when she was scanning my fish) so it does happen every once in awhile, I couldnt believe how many huge fish there was that year. the smallest fish the day i got mine was 42lbs :o I cant remember what year this was but it would probably have been like 2001 maybe :-\
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eojE8SK2Kf8&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eojE8SK2Kf8&feature=related)
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biggest fish i have ever seen other then sturgeon would be a blast to fight something that size
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ok now after seeing the size of the mouth on that 96lb'er :o im thinking that original picture might not be fake. that fish was rediculously large. I think i would have thrown it back, I mean the only reason i kept that huge one in my pic was because it went to an East Indian family BBQ ;D (work friend asked me to catch him a big one LOL) or it would have gone back also. I dont eat them unless they are 30lbs or less.........but i rather them be 20 or less ;)
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i htink an 80lber would be possible, the harrison gets 80's and these fish are harrison stock, they all return to the fraser, the only difference is the river that they're released from
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Take what ever a fisherman tells you his fish weighs and multiply by 1/2. ;)
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Thats right by home for me..anderson is about a 40 min drive from chico.as far as i know the sacramento river record is 88 lbs.It is the fraser of california.Except for the bass and striper i there ;D good to see some big moster fish close to home batteling up that far
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Over the years seining brood stock for the Chilliwack Hatchery we have never caught fish the size that are being quoted by a number of anglers. We have have probably caught in excess of
20,000 fish over twenty years. We routinely weigh large fish that enter the hatchery and the largest to date weighted 45 lbs. This fish when it first entered the system was probably over 50 lbs.
We have caught fish that we did not use for brood stock that we estimated to be over 50lbs.. These fish were released back into the river. Are there larger fish? More than likely but I'm a little
skeptical when anglers are telling me about the 50, 60, and 70 lbs that they are seeing caught.
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Over the years seining brood stock for the Chilliwack Hatchery we have never caught fish the size that are being quoted by a number of anglers. We have have probably caught in excess of
20,000 fish over twenty years. We routinely weigh large fish that enter the hatchery and the largest to date weighted 45 lbs. This fish when it first entered the system was probably over 50 lbs.
We have caught fish that we did not use for brood stock that we estimated to be over 50lbs.. These fish were released back into the river. Are there larger fish? More than likely but I'm a little
skeptical when anglers are telling me about the 50, 60, and 70 lbs that they are seeing caught.
There you have it.
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I believe there are 50lb + fish in the Vedder. A friend of mine told me of a fish that broke two guys rods and bent his 6/0 hook he estimated to be 70lbs. Unfortunately he was unable to land it but he said it was huge.
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About 6-7 years ago I watched you hatchery guys set out a drift net at the Keith Willson bridge... In the mix there was 1 spring that was measured and weighed/recorded at 65lbs. Biggest spring I have personally seen at the Vedder
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6/0 hook!! thats a big hook for a little river, i guess u gott go big if you want the 60, 70, 80, pounders....people get mad enough if you have a longer leader than 10 inches, I cant imagine what they would say if they saw me with a 6/0
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I also saw a dead 45 to 50 pounder at the Stave on Wednesday.
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BIGCOHO
Your info on the 65 lb chinook is wrong. We were conducting a Mark/Recapture program on the Chilliwack River and tagged around 2000 chinook. All the fish were measured for length but none were weighted.
As I said before we have not come across any fish that size in the Chilliwack River. Anglers tend to over estimate the size of fish they are looking at. How can you estimate the size of a fish when it breaks you off in the middle of the river? At our open house we placed a 35 lb chinook on a display table and asked visitors to guess the weight. We had estimates from 35 lbs to 90 lbs. Most were on the high
side. Over the years we have also conducted dead recoveries of chinook carcasses so we could estimate the population size of spawning chinook. I personally and the rest of the crew have never recovered
fish even close to sixty lbs and we have recovered thousands.
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Buck, maybe he is talking about the pink salmon brood collection by the Seymour Salmon Society, which has always been done by KWB if I remember correctly?
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"I personally and the rest of the crew have never recovered fish even close to sixty lbs and we have recovered thousands."
My philosophy as well. Why break your back hauling 60 lb plus fish back to the wagon when you can grab a few 6 pounders. Leave the heavy hauling for the pints and wings. :)
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I have a copy of "The Steelheader News" Late Fall 2002 and on the cover is a photo of a young guy holding a mammoth chinook and it is labelled on the front as 62lbs. from the Vedder, looks like it is KWB area